Virgin Media has received a refund of £81.5m from HM Revenues and Customs (HMRC) covering VAT payments.
The telco said in a short statement that its current contingent liability had been reduced to £23.6m.
Virgin Media didn't reveal any further details about the arrangement.
In the company's last quarter ended 31 March this …

nothin' quite like paying yer tax is there?

Branson

Nahhh... he only owns about 15% of the shares of VM, no "company income", no "company tax", there's loads of "Virgin" companies that he doesn't own any of (just sells the non perpetual rights to the brand).

Sorry, but Branson has nothing to do with this

Branson owns Virgin. That's Virgin, the branding company. The branding company owns shares in all Virgin-branded enterprises, whether they are majority-owned (like Virgin Atlantic), or not (like Virgin Media).

Virgin, the branding company licenses the name to others, that's how Branson makes his money. So if Virgin Media got a VAT refund, it has nothing to do with Branson, and everything to do with Virgin Media. Virgin, the branding company continues to draw its royalties from Virgin Media, regardless of VAT refund or commercial strategy.

And Branson is a Brit. A real one. A domiciled one. He pays his taxes in this country. That's the taxes he owes through Virgin, the branding company, not Virgin Media.

...and?

Is this as a result of HMRC losing a particularly contentious case regarding VAT? If not (and the article doesn't illuminate me any further) then why is this at all regarded as news? "Big company receives refund of tax they overpaid to bring their estimated liability into line with actual liability?" Yes. They do. Often.

HMRC don't *need* to lose court cases any more.

Their new boss is just giving free taxpayer's money away to any huge tax-avoiding multinational that wants it, no questions asked. They were winning all their court cases against Vodafone, but then David Hartnett decided to just roll over and negotiate an incredibly generous settlement that gave Vodafone everything they wanted, including billions off their tax bill and a free pass to carry on with a clearly illegal tax-avoidance scheme. He does this against the advice of HMRC's lawyers, and even in some cases apparently acts illegally himself in doing so.

See recent issues of Private Eye for the full barely-believable details. It's like he's some kind of infiltrator, not working for HMRC at all but entirely in the interests of the corporations and against the interests of the public, government and exchequer. He should be fired and jailed.

Wonder

Sick procedure.

It's sick that Branson doesn't own this company it's his startuo after all. Part of the reason there's no point doing anything because you'll just lose it if you succeed. Thing is the state doesn't take it for the good of us all, just people with money do. That's the people who've got money anyway. Branson came from no-where and started that company.

Do you know your facts?

"It's sick that Branson doesn't own this company it's his startuo after all. Part of the reason there's no point doing anything because you'll just lose it if you succeed. Thing is the state doesn't take it for the good of us all, just people with money do. That's the people who've got money anyway. Branson came from no-where and started that company."

Had you considered maybe he chose to sell it - for millions... yeah poor old RICHard Branson. Are you trying to suggest he had not done extremely well for himself because that is how it sounds.